Pearl-white E Ink display to debut in next-gen Kindle DX

PORTLAND, Ore. ó E Ink has upgraded its paper-white display. The technology, dubbed Pearl, will show off its claimed 50 percent contrast-ratio improvement over competing offerings when it debuts in Amazon's next-generation, large-screen Kindle DX e-reader, slated to hit the shelves on July 7.

E Ink's previous display technology was already the whitest of available reflective displays, but the company has moved to stay one step ahead of its competitors by upping the contrast ratio by a claimed 50 percent over competing technologies. With Pearl, text now "pops" from the displayed page, minimizing eyestrain, but reportedly without compromising the E Ink display's vaunted weeklong battery life between charges (compared with roughly a day's worth of battery operation for devices, such as Apple's iPad, that use LCD screens).

DisplaySearch senior vice president Paul Semenza said Pearl would likely keep E Ink at the top of what he predicted would be an $837 million market this year, growing to $1.2 billion in 2011.

E Ink displays are now supported by multiple semiconductor vendors, including Epson, Freescale, Marvell and Texas Instruments, all of which all have created support chips for e-reader OEMs.

E-Ink's displays are indeed beauties. For my part, I think that the reading experience of an E-Ink display vs. my laptop is an order of magnitude. E-Ink is effortless and strainless; I can't say the same of even my best LCD displays. Now there's a color E-Ink out there, but I haven't seen one. Anyone actually laid eyes on that yet?